Stomach sicknesses expected and unexpected

Dashed out of Lima on an afternoon bus to Nazca.

Met an aussie (very friendly) who because of a pre booking on the inca trail (the limited "intimate" inca trek that you do to macchu picchu with 500 other people) was taking a bus from somewhere in the south of ecuador to cuzco. It took him almost 2 days on a bus yay how fun.

He was really nice and by the time I reached Cuzco he actually ended up randomly staying in the same hostal as me.

While altogether friendly david seemed a little crazy (and rightly so due to the lenght of his bus journey) but he was a trouper and kept me entertained so loved him.

At this stage Fin and I had split for a day so I was supposed to sleep in the same hostel the night before our flight over Nazca.

Unfortunately the hostel was full (or so short steve told me so) but in actuality it was just midnight and he couldn´t be bother making anymore beds so he sent us across the road.

In the morning Fin and I spent about 4 or 5 hours waiting for our flight (seriously these people just don't have to be organised cause everyone wants to do one thing while they are in nazca and they aren't going to leave without doing it).

When we flew in out 6 person teeny tiny plane I got see sick but apart from that was astounded with the nazca lines. AMAZING. A pain in the ass with the waiting reasonably expensive (60 dollars for 30 minutes) but I LOVED IT.

My favourite was probably the spider I think or the monkey. They were just bizarre. Usually I would hate someone telling me this phenomenom is a mystery cause it usually wouldn´t impress me but for these there is nothing you can say. Did they know how to build hot air balloons...cause if they didn't how did they construct these perfect straight and curved lines into figures and more importantly why would they if they couldn't go up and see them for themselves?

We had an afternoon to kill in nazca so I tried ceviche (of course with a glass of white wine).

It was a hot afternoon and so this was the perfect meal for me. Ceviche is fish which isn´t cooked but is marinated in lemon juice with a bit of chilli and some other stuff which i wasn't exactly sure about. It was divine. I LOVED it. Served with cold sweet potato to nuetralise the acidic flavour from time to time it is by far my favourite local dish.

Then we had a bit of a pre bus ride drinking sessions (pisco sours and sangria) muchly fun.

Off to Cuzco on my most painful night bus. The stewardess must have thought we deserved a night in hell and put the heating up way too high. It was painful until I went and abused her in my sleepy slurry spanish.

Arrived in Quito to organise our stuff for our next trek to Choquequirao.

Rented another tent from Gladis the twat. She tried to insist that I pay for everything up front and while I should have taken this as a warning that the tent was a piece of .... I just insisted on paying on return.

Choquequirao is a ruin which can only be reached by walking. It is at about 3000 metres and this wouldn´t be a problem except that in between the closests towns and the ruins there is the apurimac river which runs at about 1500 metres. Because of this I spent three of the most physically challenging days of my life in the Apurimac valley.

We arrived in a sleepy little town called Cachora to start our trek on Friday afternoon and fell in love with it. It was quaint with huge lines of pigs trotting down the main square and just genuinely friendly locals as opposed to those in cuzco who just had to sell you something for 1 sol.

The town was then tainted once we were dragged into a local watering hole to share a bit of beer with a couple of drunks. After a few minutes we made every attempt to leave there as quickly as possible and they seemed perturbed that we wouldn't perpetuate some bullshit about "andian duality" and needing to buy the next beer but the problem was averted with ease.

Had our last warm meal and set off on our hike at 7am. After ascending about 300 vertical metres in about 2.5 hours we proceeded to begin the 1500 metre descent to the apurimac. It took us forever and was so painful. We then decided to finsih of the day in style and climb another 7-800 vertical metres so we didn't have to do it all the next day.

When it rains in the apurimac valley it pours. It was awesome when I could see rain coming from about a km away just slowly drifting in. When it started to come through the top of our rental tent I began to cry. Luckily Fin was in her action jackson mode got a plastic sheet and covered the top. My bed mat was wet by I was relatively dry and we survived the night muttering abusive phrases in spanish in our sleep about Gladis.

Day two I awoke with the unexcepted stomach sickness. I will spare you the details but i basically climbed 7-800 metres very very slowly and in a considerable amount of discomfort.

We then popped across the ridge top set up our dodgy tent again.

Visited the ruins which were awesome. They had a main plaza which was just stunning to sit in and look over both side of the ridge top. A helicopter pad (actually a ritual platform for llama sacrifice) and some other temples, houses and terraces. It was huge and totally worth visiting LOVED IT. There were also only 5 people there while we were there in ruins which took us about 3 hours to visit (and we didn't even see it all)

Day 3

Started walking at 6:10 am and descended the 1500 metres to the river again (different crossing) then began the painful 800 metres of ascent in the hot mid morning sun. We baked and by 3:00 we reached our destination stinking hot, sweaty and a little worse for wear. We then proceeded to spend 7 hours in taxis returning to cuzco...fun fun fun.

All in all the trek was an adventure. I really had to put all my mental energy into keeping going on all three days and despite the fact I was sick for the second day I would recommend anyone who wanted to do this trek to think twice. After thinking twice still go just make sure you are mentally prepared.

Spent a day pottering around cuzco museums organising stuff etc. Then spent today pottering around inca ruins in the area.

Found an Indian restaurant and after not having a curry for almost 3 months decided I would indulge which turned out to be a bad and good decision. Bad cause the curry was awful but good because it seemed like we were the local pobre (poor) backpackers that everyone wanted to take pity on. First someone crossed the floor of the restaurant to give us their lucky door tickets cause they were about to leave. Then when we didn't win the lucky door prize the people who did, didn't want the bottle of wine they won so they crossed the floor of the restaurant and gave that to us.....bad food free wine= loved it.

Got on a bus to about 8 km outside of cuzco at 8 am. Visited a couple of ruins then proceeded to have breakfast (avocado, tomato and cheese rolls oh so tasty) within an incan ruin (it was really windy so it made good cover and it was supposed to be a rest ruin where people ate when on their way to cuzco so really we were maintaining tradition).

Visited a place called the temple of the moon which is one of the very few incan ruins built inside a rock face rather than on top of. Loved that (seeing a spot where moonlit comes in through the roof of an underground temple onto a platform where they used to sacrifice llamas increased my interest).

Proceeded onto saqsaqwaman which is quite near to cuzco and has huge zig zag outer walls which apparently are supposed to be part of the design of cuzco as a whole. Cuzco was supposed to be in the shape of a jaguar and these zig zag outer walls of this ruin/fotress are supposed to be the teeth of the Jag. The ruin itself was huge and very interesting and after a short stroll more we were back in cuzco.

Loved the ruins around cuzco as well

BUT so far HATE Cuzco, it is very cute archeologically but the people are just out to rake any cash in from the tourists that they can. I have found out that everything in the plaza that someone is selling is one sol. Absolutely everything....and as we heard one Irish woman say to a young peruvian girl who was trying to flog a doll "honey don't sell yourself so short".

I have never said estamos bien (we're fine) so many times.

Onto the sacred valley and then machu pichu soon and then too bolivia...assuming these road blocks are removed some time in the near future.